Kevin Parrish believes the Invicta Dynamos can still make the play-off final despite trailing Chelmsford Chieftains 3-2 after the 1st leg.

In what was a tight and nervy encounter at the Silver Blades Ice Bowl in Gillingham on Saturday night, the Dynamos showed real character against the league winners.

The night had actually started in bizarre circumstances with an all out brawl on the ice in the warm up, with virtually every player trading punches with no known cause for the fighting to start.

In all his years in ice hockey, Parrish admitted he hadn’t quite seen anything like it:

“I was in the changing room jotting some things down and thinking what I was doing and I heard the crowd starting to cheer and thought the boys were just trying to get them going.”

“One of the guys came in and screamed at me that it was all kicking off, so I went out there and there were fists flying everywhere.”

“I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing out here as I’ve got no equipment on!”

“We don’t really want to see it and I don’t know what kicked it off. The stories were 50/50 and we’d shot the puck in their end and they’d shot the puck into our end.”

“It kind of set the tone and maybe we didn’t take it to them enough in the first period.”

“We were running on adrenalin from that scrap and I don’t think I have seen that since the mid nineties.”

When the game finally got underway, the Chelmsford Chieftains took a two goal lead after the first period and could have been three in front but Sean Ayling missed a penalty early in the second period.

Justin Noble was to pull one back shortly after to take it into the third with the score 2-1.

The Chieftains restored their two goal lead with just under five minutes to go, but the Dynamos clawed their way back into the tie when Andy Smith scored within sixty seconds.

Speaking exclusively to Kent Sports News after the game, Parrish admitted he still believes his side can go on and progress to the play-off final with a win in Essex on Sunday night:

“It’s always a sore loss, especially to take at home, but it is a two legged game and that’s what we have got to take with us.”

“It goes straight on aggregate and not goals scored away from home, so we have to take the positives and we matched them for periods of this game.”

“I think we can turn it around and I have full belief we can turn it around. I think not enough of our guys turned up and I put that down to nervous energy.”

“We don’t want to bow out at this stage of the season, we want to bow out at home with a cup.”

“I don’t think their goalie is going to play like that again, but hopefully ours does as Davey (Jackson) made some great saves. He’s been great for us and been under a lot of pressure coming into a senior team for the first time and not really knowing a lot of guys.”

“We can’t be afraid of anything and we’ve got nothing to lose. We were already the underdogs and are probably bigger underdogs now, but one goal and it’s all tied up and just one more and we’re in front.”

Face off in Essex is 6:30pm on Sunday night with KSN bringing you all the latest on Twitter throughout the evening.

Pictures supplied by David Trevallion.